A whole bunch of stuff that rarely involves anything to do with breakfast.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

NRL 2013 Round 2: Personal Issues

What’s the deal with these Thursday night games of football?Are they here to stay?I could look up the answer quite easily... but I won’t.I’m just that kind of person; the one who posts a Facebook status of “what’s the capital of Denmark?” and waits for someone to respond, rather than type “what’s the capital of Denmark?” into Google.Then I’ll complain about how long it took people to get back to me and how many different answers I got.

It's Copenhagen, by the way.

In more important other issues, Josh Dugan got injured (no surprises there; I believe he is being flown to India to partake in the third cricket test as we speak), got pissed (on Cruisers), got rowdy, got on Twitter and got fired.It was a big weekend for the kid, probably even bigger than mine, and I did two loads of washing.Duges knew he’d done the wrong thing (again) by posting pictures of himself drinking (Cruisers) at 8am on his roof when he should have been doing some injury rehabilitation, or you know, not sucking at football.This isn’t the first, second or third time that he’s been in the shit for drinking (Cruisers), but it was the first time he’d told coach Dave Furner to “go fuck yourself.”It’s not the first time Dave’s heard that though, as he has coached in Canberra for a while, and it’s pretty much how he's greeted whenever he pops down to the shops for a carton of milk.

After sobering up, I’d like to think that Duges had a momentary “oh fuck what have I done oh fuck why did I do that” moment, and jumped on Twitter to use a tried-and-true excuse to get out of being a dick, or what I like to call the Matthew Newton defence, otherwise known as the I’m a massive fuckwit reason:“I have some personal issues that I’m dealing with.I appreciate your help through this troubling time.”I’m afraid Ben Barba stole your thunder there, Dugels, after admitting to getting pissed, gambling away shit tins of money, being involved in bikie gangs, and ordering a Fillet O Fish from McDonalds.That guy is off the rails, man.

However, Barbsy got away with it by admitting that he was a dick and was going through some personal issues and needed to be hidden away for a bit.Dugan was about two weeks too late.Barba, incidentally, has recently been cleared to begin training with the Bulldogs again.That was a swift recovery, Benjamin, andI’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that the Dogs looked shithouse last week.It definitely has nothing to do with the NRL's current hard stance on drug use.Definitely not.It’s not like he has just passed a drug test.No way.Personal issues.Expect a few Manly players to be "personally issued" in the next few weeks.

Round 2:

Eels v Bulldogs

Dragons v Broncos

Cowboys v Storm

Warriors v Roosters

Tigers v Panthers

Sea Eagles v Knights

Rabbitohs v Sharks

Game of the Round:

Titans v Raiders

Canberra will step up this week from their dismal effort against the Panfers in the first round.For one, Josh Dugan won’t be there, and I kind of get the feeling that he disrupts the game plan a bit.They’ll probably miss Blake Ferguson more, but he was drinking (Cruisers) with Duges and has been suspended indefinitely. He should return next week and be given one more chance.In NRL terms, that’s as good as a pay rise.Which he’ll also get.

Thanks for the memories, Duges.See you at the Titans in a few weeks, and congratulations on your Dally M in 2015.

When you chuck a sickie, a good rule to follow is not to send a photo like this to your boss.